Archinect’s latest project featured in the Showcase series is the House in Ovar, Portugal, by architect, Paula Santos.

News
NYC launched the adAPT NYC Competition, a pilot program to develop a new housing model for the City’s growing small-household population. adAPT NYC seeks to create additional choices within New York City’s housing market to accommodate the city’s changing demographics. The focus being on developing new proposals for a rental building composed primarily, or completely, of micro-units -- apartments smaller than what is allowed under current regulations.

Rusty Shackleford quipped "I wonder what the realtor spin will be with these units... ‘Japan style luxury!’ ‘MINI COOPER with plumbing! Going fast!’ ...I lived once in 275sg.ft. place in NYC. A more appropriate name for this housing type would be JAIL." KarjaCH countered "if properly designed with great attention paid to detail, 300 sf can be the most amazing place to live. I spent a year in a 275 sq ft studio in South Beach, and it has been my favorite place I've ever lived. A couple could do it, no problem. Applying the same principles, then, to 1-3 bedroom units, you could drastically decrease the square footage without losing quality." Meanwhile hanque helpfully pointed out "if you look at the RFP they've already been designed."

Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation sent us first images of the new home Frank Gehry designed for the initiative and built to LEED Platinum certification standards. aml asked "not knowing much about the whole situation, i have questions. he designed a duplex, which i'm guessing will house 2 families. will this design be replicated? why are they not building mass housing? this honestly looks like a luxury house to me, and i would like to know more details about the client/architect relationship and how is it that such large homes are being built through what i thought was sort of a charity organization" yet David Cuthbert liked what he saw "I'm not the biggest fan of Gehry but this appears at first glance to be intelligently subdued. I agree that the detailing, particularly the climatic ones, looks sparse for the environment it is in. But for me the real winner is the composition, it doesn't appear as a duplex and the internal spaces look quite generous."

Gregory Walker, though argued "orhan - really? the best? i don't know. subdued is one thing, but this looks like a socal architect coming to design for the coast. imho, the 'best' of the homes is actually one by one of the hometown designers - bild design." For his part Will Galloway, wasn’t sure why there was all the hate for Gehry’s project, he believed "looks a decent enough project to me, not overdesigned nor starchitecty, which is fresh.  i can't speak to the technical or financial side of things, though Iamus' description sounds pretty believable.  the concept of letting owners have significant input is very cool."

A team of students from Yale's School of Architecture shared their pavilion project which acted as the ticket and information booth at the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas this June. The pavilion was designed, built, and fund-raised this spring and summer in the 'Assembly' seminar led by faculty member Brennan Buck. The seminar sought to explore the relationship between digital design and fabrication on the one hand and public engagement and visual dynamism on the other. Fred Scharmen thought the photos were "gorgeous, a too-rare congruence between a project's stated goals and the actual effects produced. Nice work."

Gregory Walker, also pointed us to a news story from suedostschweiz.ch which suggested that director Wim Wenders was doing a long term documentary on Zumthor's work and that the primary gist of the movie would be to document - fully - one of his projects from sketch to completion. However, Wim Wender's studio informed us that the information, was not entirely accurate, due to misinformation in Suedostschweiz.

The studio clarified "It is correct that Mr Wenders is currently working on an artistic interview film with Peter Zumthor for the upcoming Biennale. This short film, however, will be a unique contribution to this year's Biennale only and has nothing to do whatsoever with Mr Wenders' intention to do a feature documentary on Mr Zumthor at a later point of time". Juan Lagarrigue then wanted to know though "will we be able to see the biennale film outside/after the biennale?"

James Goldstein, venerable collector of John Lautner treasures, past and present, responded to Orhan's feature article Lautner's Concannon Residence, from Dust to Dust which examined architectural preservation. Mr. Goldsetin wrote "I have read your article regarding the destruction of the Lautner Concannon residence and would like to set the record straight...I feel as strongly about the importance of preserving architectural properties as anyone. Therefore, due to the specific circumstances of the Concannon demolition, I feel it was a very bad example to use in the discussion concerning architectural preservation." To which Orhan Ayyüce responded "With all due respect, I stand to disagree with your statement that the Concannon Residence is a bad example to bring forth a discussion about architectural preservation. In fact, I will say, it is a very good one because it is exceptionally nuanced, quasi non-partisan since it's lacking "the bad guy," and even includes the post-mortem voice of the architect himself."

Donna Sink, then questioned "why did the Goldstein house need to become larger? 
Surely there are other options for entertaining. ..Adjustments to daily routines to accommodate a masterpiece is part of living with art, and why we like to have art in our lives." Donna was also dismayed "that no mention was made of which architect might be designing the addition.  What a challenging project that must be and, like the Barnes project by TWBTA in Philadelphia, a job that leaves one vulnerable to searing criticism from every side."

Work/Firms/Blogs
Octavian Ungureanu, recently worked on ..My First Architecture Project: A House Design.

locatix started a blog which will seek to relate "architecture to the everyday living experience". The blog will show several new projects related with both: architecture and life.

In the post one chart, one heart, one... Gregory Walker discussed Macro Monitor’s chart which showed Construction Payroll employment (one month change) from Jan 199 - May 2012. He contended "the only reason the unemployment rate for architects (and the construction industry in general) is falling, as grieg o'brien and others have noted, is that so many people have simply left the industry for good or have simply given up hope of finding work. it's not that the jobs have come back." Unfortunately as Walter Broner argued  "for experienced architects, there are not a lot of options once they become unemployed.  It's not like one can walk into the nearest factory and get a manufacturing job, perhaps not requiring too much retraining.  Those don't exist in droves either. Supremely challenging and unprecedented situation that the social institutions have neither a clue how to, nor the requisite wherewithal to cope with."

Schools/School Blogs

hsolie a graduate student at the University of Michigan school of Architecture blogged about Taubman College's newest addition, Liberty Lofts a space used as research space and for presentations, reviews etc. hsolie recently had the privilege of assisting the school's 5fellows with construction of their installations for this years Venice Bienalle.

Discussion
Landman will be travelling to Vienna and would apreciate any architectural recomendations... accesskb suggested he "Walk around the city center, around 'The Ring' to understand and experience Vienna's inner city planning.. Take the U6 subway line to experience Otto Wagner's design of train stations and planning around the city" awkeytect thinks "Vienna is underrated" and Steven Ward opined "you could spend days just stalking the wagner projects. and they're all worth it".

rkba1984 is looking for help identifying the style of a 1916 house. Janosh labeled it "Sort of Federal Style" and Justin Ather Maud offered up "tropical federal". Meanwhile EKE contended "It's been badly remodeled over the years. Probably was a builder's craftsman originally. ‘several’ is a pretty good answer."

MegalopolisNow started a thread to discuss The Art Bridge, designed by Why Architecture associated with Judith Baca of SPARC, as an interesting example of a sustainable infrastructure because of the smart use of recycled materials. MegalopolisNow believed it a good opportunity to  reconnect Los Angeles to its river. However, Orhan Ayyüce differed "I think this bridge is more of a street furniture. To connect the LA River with the City is a much more complex project than coming up with a buzz word backed rendering that has no information on its urban design merits. Where are the connective aspects of a particular location and context and other studies?"

Finally, aphorismal wants to know what the next Must-Know" technology or software is? mdler believes it is "waterproofing and detailing" while Rand H. reported "Vasari is getting more noise" and CultureofCon suggested "Instead of  focusing on mastering one program, you might consider becoming proficient in several different programs.  If you can show projects in your portfolio that use a broad range of softwares, it might demonstrate that you are good at learning new programs."

Additionally
Make sure to read @ErwinMontgomery's essay Design is a Bureaucrat for The New Inquiry. An excerpt; "aesthetic questions are fundamentally political. Canons of taste help keep the existing order in place. Design, with its aim of conferring aesthetic value upon the humblest household items, simply attaches more articles and subsections to these canons. Design represents, in other words, a depoliticized form of democracy — a most convenient arrangement if one happens to rank among the wealthy elite who wouldn’t like to see their privileged perches rocked by a form of democracy with any real bite to it"